Why MiniDisc failed: Exploring the 90s' audio format craze (Revivals series)

MiniDisc was an incredibly popular, much-loved, high-performing format of the 1990s. Er... no. A few people liked it, but that's as good as it gets. So will there ever be a MiniDisc revival? Probably not. Check out the Audio Masterclass Music Production and Sound Engineering Course at bit.ly/3W3tpKo
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The analogue tape revival part 2 - • The analogue revival -...
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The analogue tape revival part 4 - • The analogue revival -...
The analogue tape revival part 5 - • The analogue revival -...
The computer audio revival - • The computer audio rev...
The film photography revival - • The film photography r...
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The DVD revival - • The DVD revival - When...
CREDITS
MiniDisc images in thumbnail - / david_rudnick
Noah's Ark - Edward Hicks
Cassette deck - Akai GXC-510D - AudioScope www.audioscope.net/akai-gxc51...
Vinyl surface noise - • Vinyl Crackle | Record...
Vinyl scratch - • RECORD SCRATCH Sound E...
MiniDisc - Evan-Amos, public domain
MiniDisc Walkman - Nixdorf, CC BY-SA 3.0
MiniDisc deck - Plenz, GNU Free Documentation License
Pre-recorded MiniDiscs - Daniel Huntley CC BY-SA 2.0
Dinosaur - David Kryzaniak CC BY-SA 2.0
Dodo bird - Dodo Pizza World CC BY-SA 2.0
Tasmanian tiger - Ed Dunens CC BY 2.0
Dr. No and Honey Ryder - Dr. No, Eon Productions
DAT cassette - From Wikipedia, but there doesn't seem to be a credit
Michael Fish - BBC
Digital Compact Cassette - JPRoche, CC BY-SA 3.0
Disc formats - Cmglee, CC BY-SA 3.0
Treaty of Maastricht - Museum der Bayerischen Geschichte, CC BY 2.0 DE
Recording Walkman - www.etsy.com/uk/listing/11440...
Ray Dolby - www.dolby.com
Rupert Neve - www.rupertneve.com
Sony MZ-R3 - KZbin freund333 / freund333
SSL console - JacoTen, CC BY-SA 3.0
The Royal Sun, Begbroke - www.the-royal-sun.co.uk/
Akai S900 - Angie Schwendemann, CC BY 2.0
Doubting Thomas - Source unknown at present
Apollo 11 moon landing - NASA
Sony Walkman TPS-L2 - Binarysequence, CC BY-SA 4.0
MiniDisc car player - Sony MDX-670RDS
CD drive - Evan-Amos, Public domain
Diamond Rio MP3 player - John Fader at the English-language Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 3.0
iPod - The original uploader was [e-mail] at English Wikipedia., CC BY 2.5
Hi-MD - Bruce Taylor (broooce), CC BY-SA 3.0
MiniDisc cart machine - www.springair.de/en/denon-dn-...
NAB cartridge - RPflug, CC BY-SA 3.0
Sonifex cart machine - www.worthpoint.com/worthopedi...
Denon DN-990R - www.worthpoint.com/worthopedi...

[@metaljoe9088]

The best and the most convenient digital format ever invented

[@RogerDeforest]

I agree. I'm somewhat new to the technology, but they are superior to cassettes, in my opinion. They are a lot easier to carry around. They can theoretically be recorded hundreds of times without loss of quality. You can easily move the track listing around and insert new tracks between others. The compression is a negative point, but it's not like you don't get loss of quality with cassettes too.

[@irishhawk1]

hear! hear!

[@saxbend]

As a teenage consumer making my first discoveries about the world of audio I was a fan.

[@RUfromthe40s]

Remenber " Strange Days" that would be cool

[@thomasalexand]

Agree.

[@markdryden8240]

Loved my minidisc. Had one at university and used to make discs from cd using the optical cable. I’m still listening to these discs some 22 years later! Quality was excellent and the media was super robust and portable. Being able to edit the disc in so many ways was great for people who like to make mixes. The Minidisc revival is here and now and I’m all for it.

[@djpjrn]

at the first glance to this guy, I thought he is Paul McCartney, talking about mini disc.

[@NoMoneyG]

I absolutely love my MD units. A simple understanding of the super easy functions would have saved you a lot of discouragement. I never had an issue at all. Way better than cassettes. I still have all my old MD's from the 90's & 2000's. I now collect the portable units as a hobby & still use them to this day. I enjoy buying and using physical media. Everything still sounds as good as when I made them originally. I can't say that for tapes.

[@petesmith8886]

Love Mini Disc I even had one in my car, I removed it when I got rid of the car, it's now safely locked away. I've also got my portable units. still got all my MD's great quality. and did the jobs I wanted it to do.

[@mihaigheorghiu2211]

MiniDisc used Adaptive Transform Acoustic Coding (ATRAC) audio compression. It was an improved ADPCM compression. ATRAC's original 292 kbit/s bitrate, as used on the original MiniDiscs, was designed to be close to CD quality acoustically. Years later ATRAC was improved and is generally considered better than earlier versions at similar bitrates.

[@freund333]

1. Thank you for using a screenshot from my video of the MZ-R3. 2. The Minidisc was far more successful than you think. An unsuccessful format would had never stayed around for as long as the Minidisc did. Also take a look at the massive amounts of different devices made by various different companies. A specially the large variety of the portable players. 3. The sound of Minidisc did get better over time. There where many different versions of the ATRAC format before the Hi-MD came out. 4. The fact that you had to skip to the end of the disc in order to not record over your previous recordings was only a problem in most portable recorders but the decks would jump straight to the end of the disc if you wanted to record something. 5. Yes there have been MD car radios. And the main advantage over CD car radios was that they didn't skip. That was also the main reason why portable MD players were better than portable CD players. This and of course the size. 6. Since MD is a magneto optical disc it was much more reliable than tapes or burned cds. Hot sun or strong magnetic fields were no problem. 7. You also forgot about netMD.

[@DamienLavizzo]

MD may not have been popular in England but it was certainly popular in the States and it was pretty massive in Japan for a while. Heck I just rented a car to take a drive to Tokyo and it had a MD player built in. Imagine my surprise! I was able to take all my MDs with me and listen to them on the drive.

[@atravelingboy7995]

Tell him about hi-md and really blow his mind.

[@vladchan]

Minidisc had a revival as a portable format when MP3 players ruled the earth. The NetMD ripped CDs and recorded at 4-10x speed, you could add storage (blank MDs) very cheaply, and an MD Walkman could run forever on an AA battery. An being manufactured by Sony an audio company it had decent sound compared to things like the iPod, My ears didn't bleed.

[@adibranch]

I had a car player, mainly because i worked in theatre sound and we had everything on MD (it's a superb format for that purpose), but i also bought a few albums etc on minidisk too. I've still got the car until up in the loft, and a Hitachi mini stack system sat next to me with a MD player in it. Great format.

[@RUfromthe40s]

i still know persons who record everything into a minidisc , and i have followed the improvements not all developed by Sony but from other brands, i own 5 vminidisc decks ,only bought one, the others were given to me by friends who wanted to get rid of them and they asked me if i wanted them, Also had one in my BMW 2002 bought in 96 and it ended those situation of "put this cassette to play ", and later "put this cd to play", now i have two stoped but working ,the car already came with a nice cd player with one slot one can enter 6 cds ,the previous owner never heard a cd there, because he tried to force the cd in but he had to press a key with a cd half inside the player ,so i´m using it but because of the heat ,where i live is the most hot region of Europe, i can´t play them when the temperatures are over 40 degrees celsius ,normally only recorded compilations of diferent styles and with luck they might not get blisters, but all have. About minidisc a girl ofered me the top end model of pioneer the MD-J707(or close) and when in the stores they didn´t sell cassettes or minidiscs , a friend of mine worked in a warehouse of a greatsurface and he told me that he was going to get rid of thousands of cassettes or minidics so he ofered me but i insisted to give him some money and i paid him 60€ and returned home with a car (lancia dedra)one of the most reliable cars i had filled with boxes of cassettes from TDK and sony and minidiscs too, i still have them sealed but already recorded some hundreds of them, this happened in 2001 ,but only in 2017 i started to use again a cassette deck and a minidisc deck also, normally i make playlists on spotify and record them to cassette or minidisc

[@joshscism2351]

Yeah, some niche attractions - I recorded many concerts with my MiniDisc and stereo mics. Super simple, killer fidelity, and treasured recordings to this day!!

[@just_passing_through]

Still have a Minidisc player in my car. Recorder deck in my hifi, and my portable still gets out and about. Oh, and I also drive a manual car. 🤣

[@gurtana]

An interesting perspective. For me as a regular consumer and teenage during the years of the MIniDisc era, I considered them the next step after cassette and loved the recordability and obvious portability convenience over the DiscMan or CD players. I got a portable Sony MiniDisc player and a recording deck and fully intended to rip all of my favourite songs to this format... but then the turn of Millennium the happened, I headed to university and got a laptop for campus - and with that downloaded a little known program called Napster. I surfed the campus ethernet on evenings looking for my favourite music, realising it's only a download away and I didn't have to go to the trouble of ripping the songs myself because someone else had already done so. MiniDisc didn't fail because it wasn't a great idea or didn't sound great - it declined because it was about to encounter a new era. It was brushing up against the convenience of digital file sharing: The MP3 Era, which was soon going to explode. Those uni days were like the Wild West by comparison to our sanitised today - whatever you wanted by peer to peer - it was crazy. Everything today is behind a paywall, with streaming subscriptions becoming commonplace, but I think the super convenience of the digital audio file format is ultimately why we're still in the MP3 era now, some 20+ years later. But, if you had to go with a physical disc format combined with digital audio, MiniDisc is still an excellent choice for that. it's got one foot in the past and one in the future - like a bridge between then and now.

[@ColtraneTaylor]

Seeing the comments here just about brings tears of joy to my eyes. I do wish minidisc becomes the format of choice this decade. I don't see the streaming noobs doing it but I hope it does.

[@lesrogers7310]

Well, each to their own but i'm a huge fan of Minidisc as i was when they first came out. I actually have far more MD equipment today than i've ever had thanks to used prices and my ability to repair them when needed.

[@RUfromthe40s]

mainly people stop using them when the TOC stops to be executed but i learned that one could put it to work like new a kind of tune,to allow the laser get to the table of contents ,when reading or after recording

[@apislapis]

If you watch Techmoan's videos you will appreciate that MD's popularity depended on where in the world you lived. MD was hugely popular in Japan, hardly pushed in the US market but a little bit more popular here in the UK than the US. I bought a Sony D-99 discman in 1990 as a Walkman replacement. It was slim for a CD player but still bulky, required large pockets and the anti-skipping tech didn't work too well. I replaced it with a Sharp MD-MS701, which I recorded many of my cassettes on to MD as well as playing back pre-recorded discs, it was fairly compact for its time, portable and convenient as a consumer format and it still works unlike my D-99. MDs only Pro application was, as you said, for jingles that I used on student radio in the noughties. I gave the iPod a miss. How many formats does one need and I'd reached format saturation by then.

[@adibranch]

My absolute favourite media ever. It was never that popular amongst home users but we used it extensively in late 90's theatre and beyond (and any live performances that required sound effects or backing tracks) for many years after it's apparent demise. I had a player at home and even in the car in 1998. Versatile, virtually indestructable in everyday use,small, the first digitally compressed home format, and i believe the first device to pre-load upcoming sections of track to avoid skipping, on portable players. Some of the professional units could load up the first few seconds of tracks into memory, so when you hit one of several assigned fire buttons it would play the track literally instantly, and then continue to play it afterwards if it was a song etc. This was a revelation for sound effects that needed to be played on cue, as it meant we could have an array of effects ready to fire instantly. It was also the only real media to record performances on , or back things up to. Incredible format. I literally have a player sat here now next to me. Granted, it rarely gets used, but there's no way i'm parting with it, or my discs.

[@gram1608]

Loved my Sony MiniDisc and the sound quality...

[@bjornjagerlund3793]

I don’t consider Minidisc to be a failure, I used it a lot for over ten years.

[@TheEulerID]

As a mere consumer, I found the MD format vastly better and more convenient than the alternatives for listening to on the move. Those alternatives being CDs and cassettes. It meant that I didn't have to put up with the car cassette player eating the tape and then having to extract all the twisted remains from the inside of the player, I could skip tracks as I wished, they took up less space, so I could hold more of them and, in the environment of a car, would sound as good as a CD. The same space consideration also applied to CDs of course and, what is more, I didn't have to leave my expensive pre- recorded CDs in the car in an era when car theft was rife. It was also convenient as I didn't have to go backwards and forwards fetching a CD I'd left in the car. So, yes there were most certainly MD car players. Why on earth would there not be? They were functionally better than the alternatives at the time for anything relevant. Similar arguments applied to listening to music whilst travelling on public transport. When the ability came along to burn several albums onto recordable CDs in MP3 format, that changed somewhat, but was tedious and limited flexibility as you had to pre-decide a mix of albums. What killed MD for me was when you could record vast numbers of MP3 tracks onto flash storage devices. MD was not a failed product, merely a superceded one. It was great for what it was aimed at.

[@seand67]

I still love playing MDs.....My original Sony deck from the mid 90's is still going strong

[@RUfromthe40s]

mine is wasted can't pull a disc ,is worn out, but i have 5 working perfect , two from sony , one from pioneer ,one from denon and one from kenwood

[@Kevin_Carlson]

I bought my Sony portable MiniDisc player in 2003. Back then I recorded about 50 hours of a classical commercial station (when there was such a thing in the USA). I still enjoy listening to those broadcasts 20 years later, even hearing the commercials from "back in the day".

[@jerrygennaro7587]

Absolutely correct that it had its day in Japan, but that wasn't the case in the US and probably in the UK as well. I recall that it continued to be popular in the broadcast industry for remote recording of audio for broadcast, mainly speech where its size, convenience, and quality were valued. If I recall correctly, it was first marketed in the U.S. as a replacement for pre-recorded compact cassette. That was a failed marketing strategy. Again, if memory is correct, they tried a re-launch as a recordable medium. By then, it was too late.

[@davidberry7985]

the only reason it was not as popular as other formats is the fact it was expensive at the time so most just stuck with the good old cassette tape as they was cheap to buy and mini disc was expensive at the time. these thing are making more money now than they was new as becoming collectors items

[@m3n9111]

great video.. i wish minidiscs would come back with some improvements as a next step after CDs.. i know streaming is now the king of audio and physical media has already become a niche product.. but i think the tiny minidisc shell with a mini DVD or Bluray M-Disc would be the perfect way for collectors of digital music.. and it doesnt need a new format, current HD digital formats like 192PCM or DSD are more than good enough for most ears..

[@davidstellwag6240]

I agree I thought of this idea for a much improved MD format years ago when Blue Ray came out. Dsd or 24bit 192 pcm would be great.

[@DamienLavizzo]

A MiniDisc with Blu-Ray in would be awesome. Not sure if it's possible (I'm not an engineer myself) but if it is possible this would make a great niche collector / enthusiast format!

[@m3n9111]

@@DamienLavizzo technically it can be done.. its not hard when they already mastered the manufacturing process.. all they need to do is replace the disc with a mini bluray and make MD players that can read blu ray.. the decoding of the data can be handled by any DAC that can process high res audio.. however, its highly unlikely that anyone would do it since it needs huge support from a big manufacturer to make the players and bring them to market..

[@BughunterX]

@@davidstellwag6240 Yes, there was a Hi-MD that fitted 1 GB,but was shot lived. Cant say if Blue Ray would work as MD is based on opto-magnetic technology.

[@andrewbrazier9664]

The mass market for music consumption has moved too far into streaming sadly 😐

[@bramsanjanssan4908]

A friend of mine was a big MiniDisc fan. He tragically died in a car accident more than 23 years ago. MiniDisc always reminds me of him. Hainbach made some video's about the creative use of MiniDisc in music production.

[@proffessasvids]

Bless your man! Xx

[@bookashkin]

Purchased a vehicle with a manual gearbox last summer. No regrets.

[@proffessasvids]

Mic drop xx

[@levivasquez]

I still have my original MZ-R3 and it still works, it refuses to clap out!! I bought a backup in the day which is still boxed, lol. As a younger lad who couldn't afford DAT let alone a PC, MiniDisc was my answer to move away from hissy tapes. The leap was similar to VHS to DVD so it was welcoming, especially as I used to record satellite radio and my own music creations. Proud I still have these discs and they certainly have outlasted all my HDD drives and that MZ-R3 has outlived every PC/Mac I've owned since 1997!

[@j7ndominica051]

I used MiniDisc in a theater in the late 1990s. They were reliable during performances out in the field. The cartridge was mechanically sturdy and resistant to dirt. Random access was essential. I was an open rebel against the minidisc because of the inability to use a computer, and preferred CD. It was more sensitive to shock. The "editing" directly on disk that appealed to my colleagues, seemed so limiting and stressful to the tiny buttons and jog wheel. I found that I could connect a normal Ps/2 keyboard to one of the decks to input track names. A problem with the format was the copyright police. Sony didn't allow to transfer the data digitally. We did it through a mixing console as if the medium was analogue. It was possible to transfer the data to computer, but affordable PCs didn't come around until later. Sony could have offered disk drives. 160 MB was a decent capacity exceeding other floppy disk replacments at the time.

[@MetaVIRTUAL]

Minidisc is a wonderful format. I'd love a rivival with improved storage. Much better than CD

[@irishhawk1]

My BELOVED MINIDISCS! You scandelized them!!! I will never forgive this slight!

[@proffessasvids]

He is only mad because he messed up the toc a couple of times by letting the battery die. School boy errors and such lol. Minidisc for life playa! Xx

[@JosephJozwik]

I took the Sony S2 Sports Net Md to war in Iraq in 2003 worked awesome in the desert harsh conditions, amazing battery life. Lasted for years later afterwords.

[@idontsmile666]

From my experience, minidisc is as lossless as it gets, I only ever record on a deck and would not dare use my portable unless its plugged in, plus the battery lasted longer than my phone when it plays music. So far I have gotten 3 weeks out of a used set of batteries. Yes I still use them.

[@enossifiedossified3145]

The battery life of my MD portable still amazes me. The unit has a motor and a laser yet was much less of a load on the batteries than the flash-based recorders like the Zoom and Tascam units sold to musicians, reporters, etc. that replaced MD.

[@joeclayton2875]

Well you've certainly highlighted all the flaws, the table of contents issue being the main offender. What was so amazing about the format was being able to record digitally on a tiny portable unit and thereafter use the same machine to fine edit on the fly. Were mp3 recorders able to achieve this?

[@enossifiedossified3145]

Some flash-based recorders allow manual track splitting and track deletion like MD does, but not all of them.

[@thomasalexand]

People want convenience. Creating and editing music on a mini disc player for functions (parties or other social gatherings) was a labour of love. Editing a dance compilation was crucial as a good number of tracks had slow intros and would break up the dance flow.

[@johntaylor587]

My car stereo was a mini disc player and I loved it :)

[@tor2919]

The reason Minidisc didn’t replace cassettes as intended was because MD players was just too expensive for most people. They were more expensive than Discmans too. I loved Minidisc - they really were the superior version of the cassette. They were fun, robust and portable. They sounded great too. I had Atrac 4 compression on my late 90s Sony MD Walkman and I doubt anyone could tell it apart from a CD in a blind test. Certainly not any normal people

[@proffessasvids]

I loved the experience of the kit. Made me feel like a baller when I'd put my md walkman on the desk next to the next kids cassette walkman. I'm such a bitch flexin snob lolololol xx😂😂😂😂😂

[@thomasalexand]

Mini discs were hugely popular in Japan. I still have my personal Sharp mini disc player. In the 1980's friends liked the cassete compilations I created for their parties. I then moved on to mini discs, and again it was invaluable for parties. Sometimes I would be editing a disc when traveling to a party or function. Mini disc players are great.

[@timothystockman7533]

I was a minidisc supporter. Just a note, beside CD, my previous experience with digital audio was Sony's PCM701ES, PCM601ES, and PCM501ES. (I did have some sort of Sansui EIAJ adapter, by it had analog noise problems.) Anyway, I got into MD around 2000. By then the ATRAC algorithm was much improved, even ATRAC-R. I had a couple Sony home MD decks and a Sony portable. Near its last grasp, I got an Onkyo HiMD home unit. Among other things, it did have an uncompressed 16-bit mode with no ATRAC. And somewhere along the line I put together a car system with 3 (!) Sony MD changers in the trunk! Today, everything's on the computer and I rarely turn on the MD equipment. But I do, in storage, have hundreds of episodes of The Bob Edwards Show, with lots of great interviews with people of the day, recorded on MD from XM satellite radio.

[@jazzisteve]

Mini Disc was a brilliant format to use and those TOC problems were very rare and often down to user error. Mini Disc was far superior to recordable CD in one important area. Once recorded, the sound was almost indestructible. No skipping, no loss of data to cause dropouts. Compare that to the problems recordable CD had with such things, especially in the early days when recordable CDs were often of poor quality and very hit and miss. Manufacturing them was a real problem due to the inconsistency of the dyes used. I think your early experience of MD ( probably down to user errors) made you overly biased against the format.

[@proffessasvids]

Tonally the md was warmer sounding than the cd it was recorded from. Ie the top end became slightly rolled off in comparison. Atrac was very clever. Atrac type R dsp solved the upper end roll off making recordings almost indistinguishable from the cd version. The only thing that I find minidisc suffered was stage depth collapse. The spacial ques got compressed out, reducing the front to back stage depth by a lot. Not quite 2D but no where as deep as a cd. Left to right stage positioning remained good, along with imaging. Minidisc just lost that palpable front to back depth perception in my experience. However, using in ear headphones kills stage depth perception anyway so it was never a problem on the go. I love and still use minidisc to this day xx

[@LeeBergerMediaProd]

Around 2013 I worked as a videotape (yes videotape) editor at the Florida Channel. They live covered Florida Legislation plus a nightly recap. Voice overs by the reporters were recorded on a mini-disc cart recorder. In my editing station I had a similar model for playback. Luckily for me my Sony editor could trigger playback at the edit point and so I didn’t have to push the play button for each edit event. I don’t remember one ever failing. It worked well and sounded good enough.

[@FcoDguez]

It could be the best revival.

[@fthprodphoto-video5357]

Is that you Paul ? You look better than the original ! Thanks for all the precious information !

[@thundercy]

Still using minidisc . Great format

[@madmeister407]

Mini disc was a great and versatile format. I still have my SONY MD recorder and I think I'll dust it off and start using it again. Thanks for jogging my memory about MD's.

[@HiltonBenchley]

I liked my minidiscs. I have a portable player/recorder and a couple of decks. I never bought a pre-recorded minidisc (nor ever a pre-recorded cassette), but I used to set a timer to record a couple of radio programmes each day and then the following day I'd listen to one on my walk to work and the other on my way home. Haven't done much with them for a long time. I was the recipient of my brother's minidisc bits and pieces when he decided they were just in the way.

[@petergoodman8378]

I did exactly the same. I would record "Late Junction" from Radio 3 on a timer controlled MD deck, and then listen on my Panasonic car player on the way to work the next morning. Like so many fans here I still have the car player tucked away upstairs. And occasionally I will set up my Technics MD deck and have a listen to some of my old recordings, which unlike the horribly noisy and unreliable audio cassette, still play perfectly and sound as good as the day they were recorded.

[@bukwok]

I dont know west/US or UK,but in asia ,especially in japan MD quite popular back then, sound great to my ears, uncompressed or not ,still sound fine, im not a spec or number guy, i trust my ears than number or spec, i didnt remember any problem back then, but true reliability is big problem ,because my min desk and few min player staring to die few years ago , my cassette desk still working today, but i still like mini disc,i think better than CD for how to use and store ,just a disc in a hard case, no need to take disc out put disc on a tray,so no need worry scratch your disc, so convenience , for a semi hifi guy i love all different type of format, not hate or dont like,because about the music, im not so focus on a hi res or lossless kind of thing or try hear the track where singer saliva sounds, that kind of detail doesn't make the song better or make sound better ,so hi res audio dose nothing to me, especially some pre digital ear recording music, sound good or bad all about how you mix or record, about production process than resolution, simple rate kind of stuffs, and sometimes high simple rate can create weird problem for some type of recording, i dont how to explain,i very bad at explain, i think some studio recording guy know what i talking about, sorry for my poor english. i want say on paper or number or theory is one thing and , but the result might not,but doesn't matter if your ear like it ,make you feel good, enjoy the music you love even the track recording kind of shitty,but still love it, just that simple.

[@proffessasvids]

Amen xx

[@nigew25]

Still use, play and record using my R50. Never had one problem with it!

[@Raptorx007]

Have the sony mz, but awaiting a mew battery. The metal feel, design and quality are all great. The sound is way better than mp3. Best of all is the feeling and the joy it still gives me when i carry it with me, like a moment in time which i posess always. God i hope something like this comes back

[@HarmvonAtrak]

Whether there was a place for Minidisc in the market is a question that has been answered 20 years ago indeed, when cd-rs and mp3 players, followed by smartphones, won the battle. The thoughts behind MD, and the hopes the Japanese SONY engineers had, did make sense from an historical perspective. The cd had beaten the LP, because of superior audio quality, durability and usability. So when Sony focused on these 3 points for MD, they improved usability compared to CD (record, re-write endlessly, skip, delete, mix, fade in, out, portability etc), they improved durability (Minidiscs hardly ever get damaged, whiles cd-s with scratches are game over) and they worked very, very hard on Atrac (the post '98 versions are so much better than the first from '92) to become a form of compression that could not be detected by the human ear. One should note that the Japanese consumer is the most critical in the world when it comes to quality. So a format that was not considered perfect, would not take off. Sony worked hard on the quality of Atrac and got to the right point. Hence the '98 boom of MD in Japan, when the quality finally was where it should be (during a visit to Japan in '99 I got hooked on MD after receiving an MZ-R55 as a gift). Having been into MD since, I did several double blind tests over the years with friends and to this day, no one, including myself, can detect the difference between a digital recorded MD and the original CD. Now while the battle is of course lost for MD - mr market decided - and MD has been discontinued, I find myself today in the odd situation that when diving into my old 90's collection of cd'rs, 1 in 3 turns out to suffer from cd'r rot. All my MD's on the other hand, are spotless and play flawlessly. The typical skipping-ticking sound that even the best cd-recorder could add against your will to a copy, never existed in the MD world. But as we know by now, superior audio quality turned out to be much less important to the market than many people thought in the early days of mp3. I would argue that most consumers had better audio quality in their living rooms in the 90s, than nowadays. And on those rotting cd-rs...the battle vs MD has been won by CD-R but those veterans on the winners side aren't aging very well...Lastly: many radio hosts used to work with MD, because they could pre-record their show's track list (no need to change cd-s), even put interviews in between, and had zero risks of the disc skipping, they could sit back and enjoy their own show, so to speak. Also I had some DJ friends who pre-recorded their Techno shows (mixes etc). So there for sure has been professional usage (you can find these pro MD slots in the second hand market).

[@JohnDobak]

By the way there were more than 350 Car MD player models: www.minidisc.wiki/equipment/sorting/auto

[@JohnDobak]

5:00 ToC cloning from another disc with the full length of a disc recorded, so long as the cloned ToC didnt have fragmentation and your disc that needed a ToC didnt have fragmentation you could then playback the audio no problem. The only other option was an MDH-10 with EDL's special software, both cost $$$$

[@isthatathingnow5111]

To completely disregard the domination of minidisc in Japan as "just a few people' is completely misleading. To this day you can still pick up new blank minidiscs at any electronics store. It really wasn't until smartphones gained popularity that minidisc actually died.

[@gordonshumway7465]

This is another uninformed KZbinr video. He even mentions he doesn't remember aspects of the format. Totally useless, this is the kind of video I expect from a 25 year old.

[@russellvance9882]

The discs were pretty. I used them for cutting music for performances. Since computer audio wasn't a thing yet, it was the easiest way to do it for a non-professional on a non-professional budget. I actually did get one for my car for several reasons: they didn't skip (vs CD at the time), you can make your own mix "tapes", you can skip tracks while driving (vs cassette), you can toss those things on the floor of your car and they don't scratch or snag the tape. I would copy my CDs onto MD for the car so my discs wouldn't get destroyed. The portable units worked well for recording lectures because you could press a button while it was recording to start a new track to make studying easier. Of course now they are pretty much useless.

[@meowcula]

as a pro-dj in the late 90s, minidiscs were used quite a bit to record and trade demo mixes. they also had much more success in Japan than in the UK or North America

[@j.t.cooper2963]

I still have and use my mini disc players/recorders. I love my Sony MZ-R37. 23 years old and still works like new. I also have a Net MD, but quit recording with it a long time ago and now it just gets used as a player. Long live the mini disc!! Even if it has no real practical use.

[@video99couk]

MD didn't fail. DCC failed. 8:04 Minidisc head ends were a thing. I didn't have one of those, but only recently took out my six MD auto-changer connected to a CD head end. MD was used professionally too. I was once interviewed by a radio presenter, he recorded the conversation on MD. DAT was sold into the consumer market, but volumes were fairly small. I have a Sony DTC-690 here, as well as several professional level Sony and Tascam models.

[@juansanchez7784]

I have a Sony JB 930 Mini Disc Deck I bought it back in Richer Sounds in 1998 I absolutely love it I have over 300 Mini Discs recorded & they still sound amazing, I also copy my venal’s onto my Mini Discs so I can listen anytime & also in my other room where I keep a Sony JB 330 MD hooked up to my vintage Marantz hifi, I really hope they make a comeback cos for recording physical media they’re just brilliant cheers & peace ✌️

[@teddine7366]

I wish I still had my cassette decks so I could make copies of my records. It was a beautiful way to listen to your records on a nice warm analog format. I had a Nakamichi, and a 3 head Marantz that made copies that were hard to tell the original source and the copy apart from one another.

[@MegaSimplysimon]

@Ted Dine. Still doing that,also taping off net.The quality is astounding.Playing tapes back on my original Sony Walkmans,is also a bit of an eye opener.I still use vinyl,tape,cd and minidisc.

[@dean6816]

It's like having an MP3 revival in 10 years time!

[@AudioMasterclass]

Nooooo. MP3 needs to die, and unfortunately it isn't quite dead yet. AAC is a much better technology but one day - I hope - the world will be entirely lossless. DM

[@dean6816]

@@AudioMasterclass me too. Mp3, wma, aac etc. were great when hard disk storage was an issue but now theres no excuse. PS. still love my analogue formats though 😬

[@sparqqling]

I loved my minidisc, but the compression was very noticeable in applause.

[@pedrolima8705]

I had a cassette that looks like the one in the imagem, but was not the same, ir was an Akai GXC 570 DII, it had a 400 Hz signal generator tô allow a right level regularion. Watching your vídeos bring me lots of happy memories, so I"m very hrateful. I still have a mini disc deck, and is not a portable one, hehehe. Thanks again.

[@pedrolima8705]

Only correcting the corrector: hrateful = grateful.

[@proffessasvids]

Edit function brother! Edit function! 😊 xx

[@muhibhussain8274]

It wasn't popular IN AMERICA. Keyword in that phrase. In Japan and the U.K it was quite popular and embraced especially in Japan where it came and fitted straight in. Minidiscs aren't just good for nostalgia, it's also the ability to find recorders commonly available like tapes. With CDS, standalone or cd to cd recorders can fetch a pretty penny, and with later ATRAC versions it comes to as good of a level as CD, even better in some cases. MP3s simply can't compete aswell as minidisc designed to replace tape so your whole collection can be easily converted. The only competitor to Minidisc now in terms of quality, are flac files. Steaming flacs are 20 quid a month, quite expensive while downloading FLACs are quite storage heavy, with the average FLAC File taking 1 to 2 GB each. CD quality is better than Flac and if Minidisc can perform the same, then ergo it is better. ATRAC earlier versions are bad to be fair, which is why I don't advocate for earlier Minidisc players and decks, but any player after 2000 and deck after 1998 I would recommend. Minidisc is a good format. It was just killed by legal issues as music companies were crying at the prospect of lost revenue so they tried to kill it. Minidisc and NetMD are also quite useful as you can transfer track names and carry MP3s, but I do agree that NETMd is a bit useless now as it would be the same as listening on a modern Walkman except more annoying. In conclusion Minidisc is misrepresented and deserves a revival to show the quality and creativeness of the platform.

[@jerrygennaro7587]

I was lucky enough to have gone to Japan quite often in the 90s. In typical Japanese fashion, there was a dizzying array of blank MD designs offered for sale (yes, even Hello Kitty!). In retrospect it failed due to the rapid "advance" of digital technology (though it still was more robust than later CD-R technology). Sony simply dropped it (as they did for Beta VCR, DAT, etc.). Not a good track record there. Meanwhile, CD still seems to be hanging on (especially in the classical music genre) and may yet outlive newer attempts at improved audio formats (SACD and BD audio).

[@muhibhussain8274]

@@jerrygennaro7587 I'm reading what I wrote a year later with all the knowledge I now know and am actively cringing by how inaccurate some of what I said is

[@inputerase]

“During MiniDisc's introduction at CES 1991, Norio Ohga, Sony's president and CEO at the time, boasted that "the success and benefits of CD and analog compact cassette led to a new need--a need based on satisfaction with CD's wonderful sound, durability, and quick random access, and a need based on the portability, recordability, and shock resistance of the analog cassette. It is a need for MiniDisc." “After launching the first MD products in 1992, Sony would go on to sell more than 22 million MiniDisc devices (as of March 2011), with millions more sold by other companies that licensed the technology, including big names such as Sharp, Kenwood, Panasonic, and others. The format experienced a golden age with the introduction of MDLP (special ATRAC codecs that allowed users to fit more music on a MiniDisc), but its popularity faded quickly once large capacity hard-drive/flash music players (e.g. iPods) rose to prominence starting in the early part of last decade.” The funny thing is I lost al my MP3 files, and all my iPods are not working anymore. But al my MD’s are still working including the players, and they are sounding like CD, if you like it or not 😅ATRAC Type R of ATRAC 4 is sounding fantastic. Do your homework before making a video. Minidisc was not a failure, it was on the market for almost 20 years and in some countries the number one format. MD’s are way more reliable than CD or Tape. And yes MD recorders from 1997 sounding way better than MP3 and MD recorders from 1998 sounding as good as a very good CD player. Audio compression doesn't always mean worst sound. Without MD and DCC there wasn't MP3. Atrac is the mother of MP3 of AAC and it sounds better! (Atrac Type R or Atrac 4.5) And MD's are de most durable storage medium for sure. That you had a bad experience with one of the first MD players doesn’t mean the whole format is shit. Anyway this day and age, every medium is outdated LP/CD/Tape/ and Minidisc because we live in the cloud. But it's fun to use.

[@guitarshred863]

hahaha! You guys are adorable about reminiscing this lovely old format. will I'm 54 y/o now when I was growing in the up in the eighties , I listen to music more than reading my book . I just started to collect minidisc about 2 years ago and find a program that satisfy the almost lossless compression , well in my opinion . here is my take, I take a collection of songs and using a paid software , it rendered a close to the original sound , and its digitally processed. Man I can believe what I heared. I sold. I also collect cassette decks , but I'm so frustrated when it eats my precious and valuable recorded tapes (I;m gonna cry). I just go back and forth between cassette- cd- minidisc and streaming. without music I'll probably suck!

[@subliminalvibes]

I still listen to mine today but I do NOT think it needs a revival. I'm sorry you didn't like the format as much as others did. Your unit was unique in not saving your recordings before shutting down due to low power. That definitely doesn't happen with the MZ-R70. Recording over recordings? Only if you're clumsy. If you've just inserted a disc which isn't blank then yes you have to press 'end' before pressing record. If the disc was already in the player it will always resume where it was last stopped (recording OR playing-back), or, start (recording or playing) from the start if you just inserted the disc. It's just the same as using a tape, except random access media allowed you to press 'end' and it'll go straight there. MD's SP ATRAC encoding (not LP or Long Play) is backwards compatible too. You can buy a recently mastered MD recorded in the highest quality (SP) ATRAC version and it'll be perfectly reproduced by the DAC in even the oldest players. Good stuff. Retro Grooves by Anders Enger Jensen is a perfect example of this. His discs produced just a couple of years ago sound incredible because they were mastered really well and recorded on a brilliant deck, and my old MZ-R70 almost sounds like it's playing a CD! The pre-recorded MDs from manufactures were WELL KNOWN to have the worst quality of all. As ATRAC improved pre-recorded MDs didn't, and many of us consumers simply bought the CD and recorded our own MD compilations using TOSLINK. 👌😎 It was very versatile for a nineties bedroom-DJ / amateur producer like myself. I hope you read this. Cheers for a great channel. 👍😎🇦🇺

[@Solitaire001]

I purchased both a Digital Compact Cassette (DCC) Deck and portable because at the time it was supposed to have better sound quality than Minidisc and it was much less expensive that a Minidisc Deck. At the time a Minidisc Deck cost about $1,000 and it cost about $700 for both a DCC Deck and a portable DCC player. Plus, blank DCCs cost about the same as blank Minidiscs but they had a longer recording time. Plus, I liked that you play your old compact cassette tapes, and I thought that would be enough to tip things in DCC's favor. The DCC Deck was easy to use and worked well. Unfortunately, it was when I started using the portable player that I ran into problems, and that is the reason I think that DCC failed: It wasn't really useable as an on-the-go format. This is because the portable DCC Player was so large and heavy that it wouldn't fit in your pocket, you had to carry it in your hand. Added to that is that the player had a proprietary battery pack that took about 90 minutes to charge for about 90 minutes of playback time. These factors made it basically unusable as an on-the-go player. I soon retired the DCC Deck and the portable. I think ended up getting a Mindisc Deck and portable (the prices had dropped a lot to make it affordable). Concerning Minidisc, although it wasn't a success in the U. S., it was somewhat successful in Japan. One of the factors is that in Japan you could take a blank Minidisc, put it in a kiosk, pay a fee, and have it record the songs to the disc. With Minidisc, recordings are permanent unless intentionally changed. Plus, I think Minidisc could have succeeded along side recordable CDs. Unlike CD, Minidisc was made intentionally as a portable format to avoid issues such as skipping and also a much smaller size. I have a portable Minidisc player that's about the size of three cased Minidiscs and could easily fit in a pocket. Plus, it could play for hours on one AA battery. I think that recordable CD would be used as a home format, while Minidisc would be the on-the-go format.

[@scottstrang1583]

I remember Denon had a broadcast MD unit that would allow regular PCM recording in addition to ATRAC. I CAN'T recall the model.

[@damirhlobik6488]

I grew up on LP, later CD and always bought what I wanted or could buy. I used the cassette player and later the MD for what I couldn't buy and the MD was great for saving old cassette recordings. Unfortunately, none of the media on which we could record ourselves survived because "someone" didn't want it.

[@manuelhernandez6801]

Great video but I have always loved the format. I get your point but still won’t stop me. 👍

[@proffessasvids]

Good. Another soldier! We cannot be stopped lol xx

[@octopuscorsica4839]

If you want to digitize some old tapes or vinyl records and you do not wish to invest in an audio interface, a minidisc deck may be an alternative. Putting the deck in monitoring mode without a disc slotted in effectively turns the deck into a standalone AD converter (and DAC). Run the analog signal into the MD deck and connect the deck’s optical output to your computer. The AD converter of my 20+ years old mid-range Sony MD deck has a dynamic range of around 85 dB. Low compared to any half-decent budget interface but still largely sufficient for transferring analog content.

[@adamsharples9522]

Absolutely loved my Sony MDS M100 deck. Created many playlists from my cd’s and recorded loads of Pete Tong & other Radio 1 DJ sets from the radio. Also had an MD player in my car too.

[@Just1Cornetto]

I seem to remember a minidisc recorded at 160kbps compared to CD’s 192. Personally, I think minidisc would have been much more successful if they’d been bigger , (about CD sized) yet still contained in the fixed protective outer. That would have protected it from possible damage, and given it a much higher surface storage area for possibly lossless playback, not to mention a larger area for the all important sleeve notes! Denon made a CD player in the 90’s that you could buy plastic holding trays for the discs to keep the discs in pristine condition when being handled and played. They had them at two of the radio stations where I worked. Unfortunately, this system fell down because most radio stations had hundreds of CD’s, but would only invest in about ten of the holders, meaning that you had to keep swapping discs around between the jewel case and disc holder to play them, defeating the object, rather. A bigger minidisc in a fixed holder or a CD in a similar protecting holder ( not a jewel case) would have been a much better idea.

[@dabstheleo1967]

Hi, great video, love all your videos. I have a question? In the late 80`s/ early 90`s i had a few mini cd discs. I have a INXS white label `need you tonight` mini disc. Is this valuable or should i send to the charity shop? Dabs from Derby....x

[@AudioMasterclass]

This is out of my area of expertise but a quick search on eBay shows various INXS white labels with asking prices varying from £10 to £65. You might not be going on holiday but it might pay for a drink in the pub. DM

[@dirkg3343]

The "End search" button on early Sony MD portables was in fact not very practical to use, other brands, later Sony portables and Decks for home use had better concepts. But beside of that, the MD format offered much smaller size and longer battery life for portable use than CD. Later ATRAC versions have excellent sound quality (at least for consumer use) and the options to edit and quick access tracks are unrivaled. I still love and use my MD decks, portables and car radio!

[@jasonkaiser1179]

Working in home audio in the early 90's then car audio in the late 90's I saw two things that I liked about MD. When it first came out and I was in a big huge Sony product meeting I asked about how much data it could store (150MB) and immediately thought that this would be a floppy disc killer. A rewriteable jacketed optical disc with 100 times the storage. Sony didn't share my enthusiasm on that. In car audio it found its niche since the disc was in an armored plastic jacket which doesn't mind being thrown around a car where CDs and cassettes would get trashed. Conveniently a 10 disc Sony or Blaupunkt changer was easily connected (the Funai days of Sony/Blaupunkt).

[@timf-tinkering]

I remember Minidisc being quite popular in the UK for a while. It never replaced audio cassettes, but there were pages of portable Minidisc machines in the Argos catalogue, and micro systems incorporating Minidisc decks were common. I think it was mainly in the US it flopped.

[@AudioMasterclass]

It was popular to an extent but Sony, and Philips with DCC, wanted a replacement for the Compact Cassette. Minidisc never even came close.

[@proffessasvids]

Minidisc was a replacement for the cassette and in this guise.. it absolutely and completely destroyed the cassette. Yes it was pricey at the start but that's the same with all formats xx

[@SergioGarcia-jg3yy]

I loved them but they were fragile (TOC error), though recordings were not destroyed by magnetic fields (cassettes and DATs were more fragile at this). I had the first portable one (1 hour battery life and chunky but I loved it). I had a stationary one (errors in discs many times). I had a portable only player, 2 portable recorders (I still use them today). And, yes, I used the cart one from Denon a lot in my job at a radio station. It was fantastic for broadcasting because of the gapless playback of tracks or portions of tracks that were recorded far apart from each other in the disc. I was playing tracks with commercials and I was able to select track 50 to play after track 2 and it was gapless. In the 90's this was amazing. For me it all ended with CDRs (more with CDRWs) because they were a lot cheaper, faster to burn (not real time), and the sound was uncompressed. Thank you for bring those days to 2022.

[@RUfromthe40s]

the sound was uncompressed of the cd-rw´s ,how?2 songs by cd?and the TOC error can be easilly fixed ,, normally cleaning the path where the disc is played and tune perfect the point where the laser reads the table of contents or records

[@SergioGarcia-jg3yy]

@@RUfromthe40s yes, in a CDR or cd-rw you can record audio at 44100 Hz. / 16 bits. Even if you burn CD's at low speeds to prevent errors, you don't have to burn them in real time. This is less time consuming than recording mini discs. That said, I've just bought another mini disc player, this time a Sony MDS 10, I can't help loving the format.

[@Otokichi786]

MiniDisc hardware and software was aimed at "Prosumers" with lots of money to spend. At stores like Sears, these units were under lock and key, costing more than this working class kid could afford. Pre-recorded MiniDiscs were thin on ground compared to LPs or music CDs, so I stayed with the Compact Cassette before the days of recordable/rewritable CDs. "Techmoan" has done deep dives into MiniDisc, which has been interesting as an alternative to tape or CDs of the time.

[@RayLousteau]

I had a Mini Disc car player … loved it!

[@peterabbington-blanch4391]

I knew a few people, back in the day, that used MD in community radio. They could put all the music for their show on one disc, in the order they wanted , and it worked.

[@rwilifeandtravel1854]

I'm surprised that you consider minidisc a failed format. I thought it did quite well but unfortunately ran out of time due to the ipod and other digital players. My first player/recorder was the MZ-R3 and my final one the MZ-RH1. I found the format superior to the cassette tape. I used it for listening to music, recording lectures, music demo recordings. Many of friends had MD players and I know it was very popular in South East Asia. From what I heard it did not do well in the States. For those who want physical media I think it could still do well. My MDs recorded in the 90s still play well unlike some of my cassette tapes. For the masses MD would be a hard sell now.

[@domfjbrown75]

They're still in use in my house...

[@frankbudjack3010]

I did the same thing. Result, my album collection is in near mint condition. I'm a little older than you are and been an audiophile and musician for 50 + years. I really enjoy you channel and your opinions. Keep up the great work.

[@EgoShredder]

Blank Maxell CDRs were still £10 EACH in 1997 if you got them from PC World!

[@KevinPalmer-lr2qv]

Been into the MD format since 2000 when using a Sharp micro system to do timed FM radio recordings (which I still have).Hadn't heard of audio compression then, and it wouldn't have made much difference for this purpose. Learned about the compression later on, through audio forums etc., but was hooked by then. Still using MD, including HiMD - Sony portables never seem to die! Agree that the format isn't likely to be revived though, perhaps sadly.

[@monzarace]

Ha ha! It's so funny when you say: "Cassette - reliability and ease of use". Well, that's why I still use it and btw it sounds great as well. No laser problems, no different dacs, no harsh treble. Of course I have been hoarding new extra heads etc. if that day should (will) come. I've never used neither DAT or Minidisc. Couldn't see the smart thing about it for home use. I only drive manual gear cars. Is there anything else? Why would one deprave oneself from enjoying that? Or an autonomous car? Terrible. Thanks for sharing.

[@BoxerEngineSounds]

just came from TechMoan's channel :)

[@Patbwoy]

MD was more like a transitional format, that replaced cassettes before mp3 players were invented. Back at Uni we used MD a lot to hand in music we composed or for creating a quick playback medium to check mixes we made in the studio. I liked it a lot, but of course it was made redundant not long after.

[@anahatamelodeon]

Spot on. It replaced cassette tape with something smaller, more robust and massively better in sound quality, but then failed when solid state memory (especially MMC and SD cards) became cheap. Also portable MD recorders had to use an external mic because the MD mechanism clicked too much for an internal mic.

[@Skiddins]

Anyone remember the DCC's, Digital Compact Cassettes mentioned ;-) I had a copy of the Dire Straits album in the pic you showed... despite never owning a machine that could play it lol

[@Bobby_Snoof]

Minidisc was/is the future ! ;)

[@jnagarya519]

That was my plan: buy a new LP, record it to cassette first time plated, play the tape until it wore out, play the Near-Mint LP a second time . . . But I mostly didn't get around to it.

[@worthingtonmodelrailway8628]

Recently uncovered a pile of Mini Discs - but could not find my recorder. Was surprised to see what they were fetching on e-Bay. A diligent search did unearth the unit, now I need to remember how to use it - I do remember it was a Pain to use. Be interesting to see what the quality is like!

[@proffessasvids]

I got to automatic levels of use on all my md equipment eventually. You'll get the nac back trust. Get a keyboard to name tracks as the rotary encoder naming method will always be long lol xx

[@Bob.martens]

For portable audio I went from cassette to MD to smartphone. Never liked Discman (ugh) or iPod (yuck). The later MD players had amazing autonomy and power output. They drove big closed back headphones with relative ease, something no ipod or mp3 player ever did...

[@LaurenGlenn]

MD was unique where if you had a Type S or Type R device that the codec is written on the disc so older players can still play them. Only exception is Hi MD which uses a new modulation to get more data which the regular MD didn’t support.

[@sexytasmin]

I still use my minidisc deck on a regular basis and even though it is a compressed format sounds far better than any modern compressed format!

[@proffessasvids]

Amen! Xx

[@marky666g]

Best format ever for playing backing tracks for guitars and great for solo artists to sing along to backing tracks on minidisc

[@toadof66.58]

I still own 2 mini disc players one from technics the other is a Sony still going strong and sound very good still have a Sony portable mini disc to and working fine 🙂👍

[@eddiewillers1]

Don't diss a stick-shift, David! I drive one because I love feeling connected to the machine and needing to actively interact with it.

[@AudioMasterclass]

Everyone to their preferences. I'll bet there are some out there who would prefer manual advance and retard. DM

[@eddiewillers1]

@@AudioMasterclass Touche!

[@alswearingen323]

OK, fine. I drive a stick shift BMW that I bought in 2000. I've not seen anything from BMW in the past 23 years that I found even a LITTLE tempting. The E39 is the most beautiful sport sedan BMW has ever built. Parts are still widely available, and after sorting a few week points, it has been incredibly reliable. The electronics are not overdone. When I drive conservatively, I average 8 liters per 100/km. And best of all? No car payment. They can keep their amazing new 500-speed automatic trannies. I drive my car, not the other way around. Oh, almost forgot, I likewise never saw the attraction of MD. I had a perfectly working mp3 player at that time, and it did everything I wanted (after I ripped my CD's).

[@endadalton]

I am a fan of the minidisc, but I think you have done an excellent video. This is my first time seeing you and think well done in your delivery. Listen to music any way possible is important.

[@EricB256]

Is there going to be a video in your revival series about SACD?

[@Dave_Potter]

I love MiniDisc, both as a format and as an aesthetic. However, professionals and audiophiles didn't like the lossy ATRAC compression, it sounded good for most consumers, but not the 'pro-sumers' Sony had hoped to attract. Nevertheless, I shall continue to use my MiniDiscs at home, in the car and out in the gym, it gets attention too and a lot of people ask questions and think MDs are still very cool indeed. There should be a revival of sorts, but it would require time and capital from a manufacturer willing to take a gamble on a great format and a lot of nostalgia.

[@catvaska1627]

I have a sony_mds-e10 deck + 100 minidiscs. I love that time mashine ))

[@spacemissing]

I have found some value in using the MDS-JE510 I bought at an estate sale for $20.

[@rochester212]

Minidisc is probably the best format ever devised for audio. It has the ruggedness of cassettes and the quality of CDs. And it's very easy to record, copy, lend, transport, store. Nothing missing here.